All 50 states have regressive tax structures: the lower your
income, the larger share of it goes to state taxes. While a few states have
flat income-tax rates--here in Illinois, everyone pays 5 percent--most are
mildly progressive (higher rates for higher income).

People often think things that are creative, or even subversive, in
culture will be the newest or best things around - the type of ideas
that no one else has thought of. Risk and originality go against the
grain of what’s generally accepted as the norm.

In recent columns, Nicolas Kristof has taken up
the cause of a girl in India, the daughter of a prostitute, whom he refers to
only as "M." M. is ten years old. Thanks to an organization called
New Light, she was attending school in Calcutta.

The two possible meanings of the title of this post are intentional.
It seems to me that the same tactics that Christians who believe in the
Bible’s inerrancy use to deal with evidence to the contrary are the
tactics being used to defend the inerrancy of Sarah Palin (and other politicians – Palin just provides one obvious recent example).

It's commonly suggested that the Pentecost story is a reversal of the chaotic separation of the Tower of Babel. That point gets debated. What isn't debatable is that people remain separated in abundant ways.

I don't know whether Rep. Anthony Weiner sent a lewd photo
of himself to a college student via Twitter. The evidence is mixed: on the one
hand, Weiner's claim that someone else sent the photo as a prank is quite
plausible given security
holes (since fixed) in photo-sharing service yfrog.